The Paths We Travel
by Enflope
Summary: When the androids have attacked and the world's hope is Trunks.
1. Nothing to Loose

THE PATHS WE TRAVEL  
  
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**Title** : The Paths We Travel  
  
**Author** : Enflope  
  
**Disclaimer** : I do not own Dragon Ball Z nor any recognizable characters they are in all their magnificence the private property of Akira Toriyama  
  
**Rating** : PG-13  
  
**Summary** : When the androids have attacked. And the world's only hope is Trunks.  
  
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**_ Chapter One: Nothing to Lose_**

Most people in their lifetimes would never get to experience it, those who did would never know how to describe it. Pain? Could it be? Not physical, although he had felt his body easily give in, his feet not able to resist what had felt like twice the gravitational force, yet only for him. Could it be... that it was only him, all the suffering in the word... yet he felt it was only him. How could it not only be him... no one should ever get the slightest glimpse of what he was suffering. No one. He slowly lifted his head, which had been resting between his knees. His back curled as he was pained him. He must have been lying there for some hours now, not that it mattered. Nothing mattered anymore. Despite of the small pain in his back, he uncurled himself in a straight position. What had seemed for him an uninhabited, ghost wasteland was realized to be a living ocean of the dead. He could hear cries and the mad outcries of those who knew their death was close. People bent down holding their long gone loved ones in their arms, desperately yelling and begging for help. He realized his position was not much different from all those other people.  
  
Most people would never get to experience it in their lifetimes...  
  
He wished he could still say that. But glancing again in all directions, and watching the pained expressions of those who would suffer only for moments now, since their death was nearer than the Moon was to the Earth, he regretted it. All should stuffer what he had! And he was pleased to find that most were. He was pleased...  
  
The man chuckled, his aged features clearly evident in his face. The body of his only daughter still lying lifelessly on the street pavement, now soaked in red.  
  
Yes, she was released now, and he was doomed to continue, sentenced to no other choice but to go on. Go on... To continue...  
  
...To continue what? To endure the pain that living had become... To live and see how all is lost...  
  
No....  
  
He was pulled out of his thoughts by a woman's voice. And he came back to reality. Screams of agony floating in the air. His ears capable of hearing again, the endless torture of Death in the atmosphere.  
  
"Sir! Please! Can you hear me?" Her old hands grasping his clothes as if afraid he would go.  
  
"Sorry madam, this is a mistake. Would you be kind enough to let go." He was amazed he was still able to be courteous.  
  
"Yes! Yes! This is a mistake," her voice trembling with every word she spoke. She must have been older than eighty the man figured. "My son, he... help him! Please!" her index finger was raised, with difficulty because of her shaky hands, towards the direction in which the body of a man lay.  
  
As the man approached his eyes shifted from the face of the man's body to his legs, or rather his leg, discovering he had lost his leg by the blast.  
  
Giving a loud sigh, the man returned to face the old woman.  
  
"May your son be at peace."  
  
"Oh! Oh, no, no. My son is quite well, he just received some injury..."  
  
"Madam—"  
  
"Yes! Tomorrow we were... we are going to... he's quite well. Yes, he's just—"  
  
"Madam! He is lifeless, inanimate. Dead," he said in a vehement outcry. His legs not able to support him, he felt to his knees with a cry of utter emptiness and helplessness.  
  
The sobs of the old woman suddenly became far and distant until it was heard no more. All became tranquil and passive.  
  
Dead... dead... dead...  
  
To live and see the destruction of us all...  
  
To live in total helplessness as I see all my world ripped from me... All what I have lived to see, and watched how days became into years as all this was created...  
  
All this which took centuries to be created...  
  
...to be destroyed with a single blast. With a single pointed finger form the monsters' hand.  
  
I will not live to see such an end.  
  
This time the cries did not come back. All was quiet. The man reached out to a girl's dead body. She had been holding a gun.  
  
The man laughed as he took it. This world was mad. As so would he if he chose to stay in it. A huge wave of air threw him back just as he had been holding the gun to his head, sending the gun flying to his left. As he looked up he found a boy land on, not farther than six feet away, in front of him.  
  
The man recognized the boy, for it had been known that a young adult of lavender colored hair had been fighting to protect the people when the androids attacked.  
  
And just as the man managed to compose himself he heard the boy mutter under his breath, "I was late again."  
  
Late! The boy had been late! My daughter could have been alive!  
  
"You were LATE? Was it that?" the man yelled, "you... were... late." Sarcasm filled his voice and he started laughing.  
  
"Late! Hundreds died! ...and you were..." he no longer laughed but screamed in anger.  
  
"...LATE!" he grabbed the biggest rock he was able to lift, and threw it at the young man with all his strength.  
  
The boy did nothing to evade it. He stood there unharmed facing to see the mad man, his eyes emitting a wave of hurt ?  
  
No! He would NOT be pitied.  
  
The man turned to his left, took the gun in his hands. Raised it to his head.  
  
His lips curled into an insane grin. "Next time try not to be late."  
  
And he knew no more.


	2. As Long as There is Hope

THE PATHS WE TRAVEL  
  
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Disclaimer and additional information found at the first post.  
  
Author's note: I know it's pretty boring, these first two chapters, but please bear with me, these are necessary introductions. It gets good later on! By the way individual responses will be answered at the end of each chapter—if I ever have any (sweat drop)  
  
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**_Chapter Two: As Long as There is Hope_**"Next time try not to be late."  
  
Loud noise.  
  
Nothing.  
  
The young man winced, as he managed to suppress a gasp. The man was gone. And it was because of him.  
  
"I should have stopped him. I could have..."  
  
But then, who would have chosen to stay? The world had fallen into a deep never ending abyss of darkness. One just couldn't recognize the difference between a nightmare and reality anymore. The people would forget the significance of laughter and happiness.  
  
He was surprised some people still had faith... believed that some how the shadow would pass. What troubled him the most, however, was the fact that their hope was placed on him. He hated to carry the burden which had been so unjustly placed on his shoulders. Not that he had any option.  
  
His gaze swept again to the ruins of the city.  
  
He sadly smiled as a single tear escaped the corner of his eye and trailed slowly down his face until it dropped to the ground.  
  
He had recognized that city.  
  
He had seen it all his life. Even before he even knew that people could fight. Before he had gotten to the abrupt conclusion that fighting was the only way.  
  
For all he knew fighting was the only way out. Self-defense. Those who couldn't would fall. Even those who could would. He thought remembering Gohan. ...At least those who could stood for a better chance, he reasoned.  
  
He slowly advanced taking breaths for every step he took. Trying to digest what he had just seen.  
  
He stopped. And stood there, for what had been like hours for him, with a plain expression gazing at what had been once a large collection of perfectly carved brick squares –nothing more now than shattered pieces of vague figures.  
  
He tensed as a shiver ran through his body.  
  
Then relaxed suddenly feeling the warmth of the breeze, the freshness of the air. The dark atmosphere in which he was suddenly became replaced with one of light. He found people, young, and old cheerfully eating and drinking. Children playing merrily as their family discussed which combatant would win. He turned his head and shifted his gaze towards the platform.  
  
There he was.  
  
A small boy of dark hair and laughing face. Goku —from whom he had heard all those exciting stories from her mother at night when he was a child. Whom he had wanted to be when he was a juvenile adolescent. Who inspired what he was now.  
  
The crowd was pleased and enjoying themselves.  
  
He knew what was next. The blonde man with the microphone would announce Goku as the Tournament's winner. Yes, he knew. He had lived this through a thousand times. In his dreams when he was asleep and in his thoughts of longing when he was awake. His mother, Bulma, would always buy the tournament's video as soon as it would be on for sale –only the ones to which she had attended that is.  
  
All his childhood he had lived in fear and hiding, watching those videos over and over would be the only thing to bring him hope. Hope that one day all that could be recovered. Hope that those moments would cease to be just scenes captivated by a camera, scenes which could just be paused and remain frozen behind screen for a long time until the electricity would run out and perish forever.  
  
Hope that those moments became reality. Those emotions and expressions remembered.  
  
A flicker of hope.  
  
Nothing more.  
  
The city was destroyed along with any possibility of the Martial Arts Tournament being reopened to participants and public again.  
  
The scene began to fade, perishing gradually. All what had been of solace to him, his temporary anchor to light, one of the reasons for his distant length to the path of despair... had vanished completely.  
  
He attempted to inhale the fresh breeze only to be rewarded by the coldness of it. The peaceful moment he had held had deserted him.  
  
And he closed his eyes as darkness claimed the land once again.  
  
Screams... of remorse and despair...  
  
He softly cursed at himself as he opened his eyes.  
  
The people! There were people dying out there, and his thoughts were dwelling in a world that didn't exist, that would never exist.  
  
He cast his eyes upon the remains of the platform one last time, never to look upon it again, and hastened away in a swift flight.----------------------------------------------------------------------------Bulma had never though of herself as a weak woman. Oh no, definitely not! She had seen more and experienced more in forty years than most would in twice their lifetimes. It might have been more because of Gokou's influence, than her own thirst of adventure, she would often figure. Yes, the thought did cross her mind. When all was quiet she would often place out what her life would have been like, had she not met Gokou. Probably have a dull life, married with some cute model, being the president of Capsule Corp, swimming about in riches and never considering the useless life she'd have. Probably she would be one of the ignorant millions who would never know the sacrifices all of her friends had done in a fruitless attempt to save the world from the hell it had become.  
  
Not a chance she would change her life for that, not even this life.  
  
Just as she would contemplate what she had gained, she would also reflect over what she had missed, all that which had remained undone.  
  
She would regret the fact that Trunks did not grew up raised with a normal childhood. She would remember the day he was born, all that which she thought she would get a chance to do with him. The moment she had hold him in her arms for the first time, she had seen the life of her Trunks swiftly pass through her eyes. He would grow up to be a healthy child, go to school, get a chance to play with other kids his age. He would be a smiling boy. He would spend time with his father, Bulma had hoped, spar with him. Whatever it was that fathers were supposed to do with their sons. She would take him to work, in hope that some day he would become the successor of the president of the company.  
  
At that moment things like those did not seem so far away. Now those were simply impossible.  
  
She would never get to know the answer, what his son would be like had they not lived in terror and hiding. Had him be raised by a complete family, and not only by his mother.  
  
She would always muse over those things, but never would she regret what his son had become. Trunks grew up quicker than most boys his age. It must have been because of the current condition the world was in. He had grown knowing the value of responsibility since a very young age. Bulma would always grimace when she thought about it. Trunks had lived a tough life.  
  
Vegeta... all that which had remained unasked, unsettled, undone.  
  
All that she had lost. Those androids had stolen her life. She hated them just as much as Trunks did. But in her case it was because of selfishness.  
  
Right now was one of those times. She had gone out to buy the ingredients for today's meal, and had arrived half an hour ago. It had felt somewhat peculiar, actually, at the fact that she referred to it as 'buy' since the market store had been closed as of late. Perhaps closed was not right, just abandoned. The store was deserted. She had entered, taken what she needed, and driven away only to stop some minutes later, feeling somewhat guilty, and driven right back. She had returned and placed a decent amount of money over the counter, saying, "Had I not been a decent lady, I would have just entered and taken anything!" with a smug glow of self-congratulation.  
  
She had just finished placing all the food supplies she had just 'bought' in their proper larder and was just deciding what to cook for supper.  
  
She somewhat felt that now a days the only thing that made a difference between a day and the one before was what she cooked for the meals.  
  
She took great pride in what she cooked and somehow managed to come up with a new dish for every day of the weak, without repeating a single day, which, (she would proudly remind Trunks everyday) due to the present circumstances, was a very difficult task.  
  
**_To be Continued..._**  
  
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Sorry, dumb chapter ending!   
  
Review please!!! 


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